Downtown Seawall

As Vancouver's downtown has grown and new developments have emerged along the north and south shorelines of the city core the double lanes of the Seawall path has grown right along with it. I'm not sure of the exact length of this 21st century foot and bicycle path but ... totally wild guess here ... I would say that start to finish the Seawall is now well over 40 km in length. A serious morning or afternoon of biking alongside the most picturesque scenery anywhere in Canada.

Today I decided to hit the north side of the Seawall and after a 15 minute drive around the interior of the park to survey the progress of the repairs of last winter's storm damage I parked and hit the trail. It was a great mid morning two hour walk with cool spring sunshine and light crowds.

The devastation in the park still amazes me even though I've seen it dozens of times now. For you weather fans a one hour tour of today's Stanley Park will show you, in very graphic and ugly detail, the effects of storm induced micro-cells. These are little tornadoes that popped up in the park during the peak of the storms. Micro-nukes. Huge gigantic building sized trees flattened while 10 meters away nothing.

Shudder. I still remember the two most vicious of the storms. The one in November in particular. I've been witness to some nasty storms in English Bay over the past 16 years but that night the storm was different. Not only did it set records and nuke the crap out of Stanley Park there was something almost animal about it. At 3:00 AM, as the storm lashed away at my apartment 32 floors over the bay, at times I could hear this deep harmonic moan. The sound people say they hear just before a tornado strikes.

Tomorrow is the big Vancouver Sun Run 10k marathon and, unfortunately, the current forecast is predicting a brutally sunny day. Ugh. The event always makes for some awesome pictures as 51,000 sweaty Vancouver-ites run past my apartment at Beach and Thurlow. This year I think I'll stand out front and as the first serious marathoners streak past my apartment I'll yell encouraging and West-End crazy things like "You kids get off-ah my lawn!!" :)